Abstract:

Canada’s book publishing policies traditionally focused on the Canadian-owned sector as the principal vehicle for producing Canadian content. In particular, they set out a lot of conditions for foreign investors who consider investing in the Canadian book industry to favor Canadian control of book businesses. In recent years, the government of Canada has adopted a number of new measures which is different from the conventional book publishing policies to promote the development of the domestic book publishing industry. Typically, without any changes being made to the Revised Foreign Investment Policy in Book Publishing and Distribution, the Heritage Minister and the Department of Canadian Heritage, which is responsible for administering and enforcing the Investment Canada Act in the cultural sector, have authorized investments that would appear to fall short of the said Policy. The new developments suggest that there is more openness by the government of Canada to encourage foreign investments. This paper begins with brief introductions to the Canadian existing book publishing programs, regulations and policies. Then it analyzes recent decisions allowing book publishing investments, and compares the similarities and differences between them and the existing policies, and summarizes the new changes of the Canadian book publishing policies. Finally, it outlines the causes of these changes and their impacts on the Canadian book publishing industry.